[LAU] installation weirdness

Greetings, Yesterday I tried to install the i386 version of the new Ubuntu Studio 9.04. I erased some partitions, got everything set up and going swimmingly, then after a while I noticed that the installer had hung up at an error. The error message informed me that the Select And Install Software stage had failed. I chose to continue, went on to install Grub, and then it failed too, with a similar message re: failure to install Grub. Alas, at this point the installer went spinning into the dead zone. I couldn't proceed, the error panel obscured the continuation panel, and I eventually had abort the installation. Fortunately my 64 Studio partition was untouched, and the installer had left my original Grub menu intact, so I still have a workable system on this machine. Incidentally, the error message advises lowering the speed of my CD/DVD drive. How can I make that happen ? The machine is my laptop, an HP G60 powered by a Turion X2. I've had problems installing other systems on this hardware, but some others have installed without complaint (Ubuntu Intrepid, 64 Studio 3b). I'm going to try the 64-bit version today, hopefully I'll have better luck, but I was hoping to install a 32-bit system on this partition. Any advice from the experts before I try the 64-bit install ? TIA, dp